Jon Parkin was larger than life - and certainly larger than just about any other professional footballer around - and would stroll out at the Britannia Stadium like he’d just wandered aimlessly in off Fenton Park or Wolstanton Marshes.

Was that a beer can up his jersey? Or simply Mother Nature? And hopefully that isn’t fag ash down the front of his shirt.

But the big fella could play, as well as rough up defences, and the self-proclaimed ‘Beast’ was was a monster hit with supporters.

He makes no bones about his ‘Sunday Football’ approach to the professional game in his new book and working for Tony Pulis, that strictest of ringmasters, seemed certain to end in tears, most likely The Beast’s, but for the best part of 18 months between March 2007 and September 2008 Stoke City was a home from home for the loveable rogue.

Read More

In his newly-released autobiography, Feed The Beast, he remembers: “As always, I struggled after returning from the summer break, but Tony was aware of what I was like. He was very old school and tough, but he was fair.

“He was massive on fitness, but I managed to get through my first pre-season okay.

“The first-choice pairing up front was generally Ricardo Fuller and Mamady Sidibe just behind him. Sidibe worked hard while Ricardo was lazy – but then he’d do something outrageous and win you the game.

“He’d do it often enough to keep his place in the side. To be fair, he did what he did well.

“We headed out to Austria for pre-season and had one very high-profile friendly while we were out there that everyone was desperate to play in.

“Real Madrid had wanted the hotel we’d booked, but had left it too late, so they offered to play us in a friendly if we swapped hotels.”

The only problem for Parkin was the boy racer in him and one day, before the big game in Austria, he was out on the hotel golf course when he and goalkeeper Steve Simonsen spun their golf cart down a steep bank.

It would cost Parkin £1,200 to replace the buggy, but luckily didn’t cost him his place in the party to face Real.

Read More

The Beast’s love of life was legendary and Stoke thought they had taken precautions to prevent his worst excesses.

“I still liked a pint and still liked to gamble. I think my reputation was still intact and while I wasn’t going mad drinking or gambling, Tony Pulis knew that if I stayed in Barnsley, there was no way I was going to change my ways.

“As a condition of signing for him, he told me I’d need to move to Stoke, or at least somewhere nearer the club.

“He told me to get away from my pals in Barnsley and I said: ‘Yeah, no bother. I’ll do that.’ I had no intention of moving down.

“If I did that, I could claim my relocation money which was about £8,000. I got a few receipts together and handed them in and got paid shortly after.

Jon Parkin celebrates scoring for Stoke City against Leicester during the Coca-Cola Championship match at Britannia Stadium on Saturday, March 31, 2007. (Image: PA Wire)

“Meanwhile, we’d signed Richard Cresswell from Leeds and he was living near me in York, so I started coming in with him to split the petrol. Tony clocked us coming in for training one day and I think he probably suspected I hadn’t moved. John Rudge was our sporting director at the time and he asked me if I’d moved in yet.

“I said yeah, I had and it was good... a nice area and all that.

“‘How’s the house?’ he asked. ‘Good as gold thanks John.’

“‘That’s funny,’ he said. `Every other house on your street is flooded.’

“‘******* hell!” I said. ‘I’d better get off and check it.’

“They knew what the craic was, but nothing else was ever mentioned. They must have thought I was cheeky and let me carry on.”

Read More

Parkin, still playing for York at the age of 36, would appear 29 times during Stoke’s promotion season of 2007/08, but 25 of them from the bench, so he knew his days were numbered after reaching the Premier League.

“For any footballer carrying a bit of timber, the worst thing you can have is the bleep test.

“Basically, run as far as you can for as long as you can, reaching targets timed by bleeps as the fitness coaches try and gauge where you’re at. I dropped out before Level 9 and the keepers were still going by that point! You needed to get to a minimum of Level 14 and Russell Hoult and Steve Simonsen kept going as I reached my limit.

“A goalkeeper’s fitness and stamina level is usually a lot less than an outfield player, but the goalies were plodding on while I was gasping for oxygen, unable to take another step.

“I think the coaching staff could tell I’d enjoyed my summer.”

Stoke City boss Tony Pulis told Jon Parkin he wanted him 'around the place' even if he wasn't a regular starter. (Image: Martin Elliott)

It was the beginning of the end at Stoke City after Pulis had indulged the big man for more than a season, even informing him so late about Plymouth’s desire to take him on loan the previous March - so as to prevent him leaving says Parkin - that the the big man was forced to hot foot it into his local library to grab a fax machine in a futile attempt to complete the necessary paperwork.

Relations between the two survived Parkin’s eventual sale to Preston in the early weeks of Stoke’s Premier League existence, however, so much so that Pulis has written a foreword to the big fella’s book.

He writes: “There used to be a thread between football and working class people that’s largely gone now, but Jon was a genuine thread.

“He was part of how the game used to be and I found that fantastic to be around.